Well we’re off to a good start when Brian tacks on “Whatever,” wouldn’t you say?

Rekka starts off recapping her trip to the Nebula conference in Pittsburgh and then the following weekend in Maryland at Balticon.

Then an Addam’s Family tangent for your enjoyment.

A little too much slice of life for you: Cats meow to people, not to each other. “This is how we’re doing this.” (Tig Notaro probably does a better job writing comedy about cats.)

Would you like to see the video recording of these episodes? To see the toys that Rekka holds up to throw off the conversation over and over? Would you like more or less animals being talkative in the background?

Reasons for Collaboration:

* Share a universe (writers really love to write fanfic of their other writer friends’ works);

* Fan with your friends’ characters;

* Lend name recognition to increase audience of a lesser-known author;

* Increase frequency of content within a shared universe;

* For fun (Brian is incredulous);

* Push yourself to try new things;

* Spread around the effort;

* Involve experts in different areas (topics or parts of the process).

Best Practices:

* Work with someone who you love and trust and would not mind getting into trouble with;

* Start with a contract (to protect all parties involved), no matter how hopeful you are about the project;

* Part amicably before things get nasty if you see it going in that direction. Save the friendship first;

* Set boundaries, set up how the royalty process will be paid out and who gets how much;

* Give everyone the ability to contribute to all the areas of the process they want to.

Brian & Rekka are Collaborating on a Project:

* Brian likes the idea of working with someone he respects, being pushed creatively, and working with someone else rather than alone;

* Rekka agreed for the fun of not working in a total vacuum and seeing what happens when two writer styles are combined;

* They’re each writing a separate POV and then they’ll go back and revise together;

* They’re going to be providing honest, constructive feedback as they go, understanding that they’re working with respect for each other.

Technical Tips:

* They’re sharing a Scrivener 3 project in a DropBox folder (be warned of simultaneous editing and what that does to modification dates / synching / working offline);

* One leaves notes/comments on the other’s recent scenes and work so they can track reactions without changing anything;

* Asana used to manage task lists / podcast episodes / collaborators can see live updates;

* Google Docs and a few others allow live changes and collaborations;

* They don’t recommend making multiple copies of the project to avoid confusion / work loss later. If your collaborator is active in the project, just make a note in a simple text file so you don’t forget what you wanted to do that you can paste into the project later;

* Both are familiar enough with the technology to understand how the different elements of the tools work;

* Use whatever works best and prevents confusion and slow-down;

* Turn off the Scrivener preference that automatically opens the last project upon program start-up;

* Someone please develop WritHub for Brian with a Scriveneresque interface. Please include function bananaPants().

Final Thoughts:

* Consider how the people involved prefer to work and be ready to work som...